The Golden Mouse: A Children’s Poem for Adults

Editor’s note: George Ellison’s column this week is a sort of fable based on one of the seldom-seen (almost mythical) rodent species found in the Smokies region that climbs trees with acrobatic ease and builds platforms from twigs that it rests on while watching the world go by far below.

“I’m told you have come a long ways …

crossing seven mountains and seven rivers,”

said a woman who continued to braid the

hair of a girl who looked like her daughter.

“I need to ask why you bother to visit this

village so far off the main-traveled way.”

“Very well,” she said after hearing his reply.

“Come with us … there’s a small cove with

a spring halfway up the mountain. No need

to worry but try and enter into

the right frame

of mind. Along the way say the names of

the mountains and rivers that you crossed.”

Privet overgrown with greenbrier and multi-

flora rose formed dense tangles that covered

the forest floor beneath a stand of hickory and oak crisscrossed with strands of grapevine.